We Each Have Our Battles

My friend Xena used to ride her motorcycle to church, then call me the next week. “I don’t know what I’m doing in that ritzy church,” she would say. “Surrounded by all those women wearing their furs and me in my denims.”

Usually I would assure her that she was an important part of our congregation and that we would be much poorer without her, but once I tried a different approach.

“I saw where you were sitting Sunday morning, Xena. It might interest you to know that on the row behind you, that handsome well-dressed couple just buried their only son. He was in the Air Force and was killed when his trainer crashed. And on the same row as you, that family is battling alcoholism. An older lady a couple of rows in front of you is facing bankruptcy. Everyone around you was in church because they were hurting and needed the comfort only the Heavenly Father can give.”

“Thanks. I needed that,” Xena said.

Someone has said that everyone you know is either in a crisis, just coming out of one, or about to experience one.

You cannot look at their exterior appearance and tell. I had a reminder of that Sunday morning at Riverside Baptist Church down the street a mile from my home.

Toward the end of the worship service, Joe Marsh asked the pastor if he could say a word about the church’s Celebrate Recovery program. He rose from the pew behind me, walked to the front and stunned everyone with his testimony. Later, I asked for the privilege of sharing his story. After you read it (which I have edited slightly), I’ll give you my own little tale of woe, one I’ve never mentioned on these pages.

“I’m Joe Marsh. Those who look at me see a normal guy. I grew up in church, surrendered to the ministry at 17, and have been a grad student in seminary for 18 months. I’m 6 feet 1 inch and weigh 195. People who look at me have no idea what struggles I have in my personal life.”

“I am an overeater.”


“My father and brother have both weighed over 400 pounds. My sister and mother have both weighed over 300 pounds. At 14, I weighed almost 240 pounds. That’s when I decided to take action before it got out of hand.”

“I joined the football team for the weight training program, then quit before they made me play. I pushed carts at Wal-Mart, then started running 6 miles a day. After getting married and beginning to gain weight, I went to work for UPS. Throwing around hundreds of heavy packages every night is great exercise.”

“Recently, while I was waiting to pick up my wife at church–she runs the preschool–I heard our associate pastor working on some music on his computer and started singing along. He invited me to sing at Celebrate Recovery later that night and I took him up on it.”

“After singing that evening, I stayed for the message and small group session. As the men in the group began sharing their hurts, habits, and hang-ups, I was snacking on the cookies and M&Ms on the table. No one noticed I had eaten three handfuls of candy and was on my fourth cookie. When it came my time to speak, I laid the cookie down. And there, in the middle of the small group time, I had an epiphany: I was an overeater. I had a problem for which I needed God’s help.”

“Over the years, I’ve bragged about being able to eat whatever I want to. The truth is, I eat too much, then exercise it off. For Thanksgiving, I biked two miles, then ran two. I was sore for a week. That raises the question what will happen to me when I’m no longer able to exercise so much? What will happen when this body doesn’t get around so well?”

“Going to Celebrate Recovery gives me the opportunity to share this burden with other believers who will pray for me. It falls directly in line with James 5:16, ‘Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.'”

Celebrate Recovery meets at several of our Southern Baptist churches in the New Orleans area as well as other cities across the country.

Now, the other story.

My sister Carolyn sent a link to a story that recently appeared in USA Today newspaper. A television anchor named Lee Thomas has written a book about his vitiligo. “Turning White: A Memoir of Change” is the story of this African-American media personality’s struggle to come to grips with the white spots on his face and body.

I have vitiligo. I know the struggle and have shed the tears.

Lee Thomas knows it far worse than I ever could, however, as a black-skinned man sporting brilliantly white blotches across his face, neck, and hands. It’s elsewhere on his body, also, but clothing camouflages that.

Vitiligo is a skin malfunction. The pigment cells are destroyed and the melanin can no longer be produced by your body. Dead skin cells the color of your normal complexion are flaked off and replaced by colorless cells. If it occurs all over your body, society calls you an albino. In most cases, the disease merely leaves you spotted like an appaloosa pony. It starts with a tiny spot somewhere and then shows up in other places, then spreads. No one knows what causes it and so far, there is no cure for it. Believe me, I know. I’ve tried them all.

In my case, I was 35 years old. A friend in my church had encouraged me to fly to Dallas and go through the Cooper Aerobics Clinic for a complete examination. There, a doctor asked me about a white spot the size of a dime on my groin. Neither of us had a clue what it could be. I did nothing.

Before long, I had a spot just like it on the back of my hands. Then under both eyes. Then on my torso. This was becoming serious.

A dermatologist examined me and used the word “vitiligo.” (Pronounced VIT-uh-LIE-go) He gave me pills to take, told me to buy a sun lamp, and prescribed a daily regimen I followed for many months. Take the pill, which would increase my ability to tan, wait 30 minutes, apply sun screen to the portions of my face and neck not needing more pigmentation, and sit under the sun lamp for–I don’t recall how long, maybe 30 minutes or an hour. I did that for many months in the late 1970s.

Nothing happened. It just got worse.

Another dermatologist suggested I might bleach out the remaining dark skin in order to create a uniform look. Michael Jackson did, which accounts for the paleness of this Black man. I thought about it, and decided against it.

What I did was choose to use makeup. Dermablend is manufactured to hide blemishes, scars, and other skin defects. The USA Today article on Lee Thomas says he uses makeup for his television appearances. In fact, no one at his station knew he had the problem until he told them. Sometimes, when he’s off duty, he goes without the makeup and then has to deal with the stares of the public. It’s no fun, he says.

Being white-skinned, but naturally dark-skinned (if you can follow that), I have chosen to use the makeup on my face. My hands are completely pigment-free and solidly white, which results in some humorous moments. Sometimes, older women in my pastorates have said, “Oh pastor, you have the prettiest hands. They’re so white!” Sometimes, I tell them and sometimes I just say, “Thank you.”

That’s why you have never seen me wear a short-sleeved shirt.

Either vitiligo is becoming more prevalent–I see more and more people with it–or maybe it’s just because there are more people now than there used to be. Obviously, if a person was doing a great job with the makeup, no one would know, but most of the victims I see tend to be light-skinned and therefore the problem is hardly noticeable.

I have long since quit crying about it. But I did. Lord, how I did. It was awful. Eventually, like every other handicap in life, you either adapt to it or retreat into a shell, and that was never an option. God had called me to pastor churches. However, I dreaded becoming an embarrassment to the congregation.

These days, I rarely think about vitiligo and have long since given up on finding a cure for it. My morning routine simply has “apply makeup” as one of its features. I get up, read my Bible, do my exercises, walk on the levee, take a shower, shave, do the makeup (and wait 5 or 10 minutes before washing off the powder), get dressed, and head to the kitchen for breakfast with the morning paper. Every morning of my life, almost. The only variable is that I don’t walk on the levee every day.

Paul told about some handicap he had. Thankfully, he did not tell us what it was. But after repeatedly praying for its removal, unsuccessfully, he heard a message from the Lord. “My grace is sufficient for thee; my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

As he reflected on the matter, Paul decided the handicap which may well have been a messenger from the devil, was actually a tool in the hands of the Lord, sent to keep him humble in the midst of some out-of-this-world experiences. (II Corinthians 12:7) As a result of all this, Paul declares that he will even take pleasure in such negatives in life, for “when I am weak, then I am strong.”

My point in sharing Joe Marsh’s, Lee Thomas’s, and my handicaps here is to say to all the Xenas in the world, we all have our burdens. Yours is one kind, mine is another. It’s real life in this fallen world, and we can rise above it and let God use it, or we can let it crush us and end our usefulness to God and others.

“Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (I Corinthians 15:57)

4 thoughts on “We Each Have Our Battles

  1. Brother Joe,

    Thanks for sharing the stories, especially your own. Your perspective, honesty, and spirit of faith inspire us all to live more fully for Christ, in spite of, and maybe because of, the various challenges the Lord has allowed us to experience.

    Amen, maybe we rise above and let God use us!

    A lighter note on battles, this time on the gridiron: If Washington manages to win both of its remaining games, and New Orleans loses one of its, then the ‘Skins will be in the playoffs. Not sure what to make of it. Just another point of connection we share, and with a little fun mixed in.

    Meanwhile, our association continues to promote “Network . . . New Orleans.” Making progress.

    Christmas blessings,

    Greg Loewer

    NorthStar Church Network: An Association of Baptist Congregations

    Annandale, VA

  2. Bro. Joe,

    Thanks for being so transparent. We all have our battles as you so aptly noted. Perhaps we can learn from you, Joe and Lee’s transparency.

  3. Dear Pastor Joe,

    You know not how deep some of your messages are. This one just like other Sermons was rich and truly inspiring.

    We all have our burdens and we need the Dear Lord to see us through.

    God bless you.

    Regards,

    Pastor Peter(Lagos, Nigeria)

  4. Bro Joe,

    A very good day. Was just browsing for free cartoonist for my Vitiligo awareness campaign in my country Nigeria, when I came across your story. I must tell you quite inspiring and motivating, I broke out with Vitiligo feb 2005 at age 30 and it has concentration on my forehead (right side) though I have gotten over 60% of the depigmented patches repigmented, been fighting with everything PRAYERS, herbs, nutritional supplements, diet, Living positively and more. I have never worn make up even though I am a dark person, not because I am super human but leaving it as it is to give hope to other persons living with it. I also decided that I have a life to live and stopped bothering about what people thought or said even the segregation, my story is on the website http://www.vitsaf.org (we are upgrading but it is on)

    Its a strange thing here in my country, I founded a foundation and trying to use all creative means for awareness and fund raising. I have compiled experiences told me to make a story as to what persons living with Vitiligo go through and I ant it illustarted and made into a book for public consumption free.

    I wish you would be part of this.

    Thank you,

    Ogo Maduewesi

    Lagos, Nigeira

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